


Reparations

by Doceo_Percepto



Series: Bendy's Murderous Adventure Across Moominvalley [33]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Other, POV Second Person, Sammy and Bendy's relationship after Bendy returns from Moominvalley, happyverse, it's part of a wider AU series that is a crossover, might add chapters if I feel like it, omg that's a tag I'm using, or have ideas, so good to know that going in, this isn't a crossover itself but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2019-10-03 23:49:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17293658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doceo_Percepto/pseuds/Doceo_Percepto
Summary: Your God has finally returned to the studio, but he is not the same. You do your best to make him happy anyway.





	1. Chapter 1

Bendy, your most magnificent and frightening God, has returned to the studio.

But he has returned different, and you do not know how to approach him. Always his presence strangled your heart and seized your lungs. Always you were afraid to merely breathe in existence, lest he find something about it disdainful and elect to take you apart molecule by molecule (and if he so choose, it would be Right and Just because he can do nothing wrong, nothing at all). But despite your terror, you have the nerve to believe you share some… connection with him, who is most monstrous, most evil and powerful. You had, after all, spent a long period of time learning him. How long exactly, you do not know. Time has no meaning here - there’s no day, no night. No sleep, and not even, truly, awake. It is like a long, dizzy dream, foggy with ink, and yet for so long you had shared this dream with him. You had dared to believe that you might understand him, just a little - understand what he enjoys, understand what he dislikes. And this understanding facilitated a confidence around him. A way to behave.

That is gone now.

He frightens you in different way, now.

He is still your God, the greatest of all creatures, but you no longer know how to approach him.

He is quiet.

He returned quiet. His tail drooped and dragged over the floor as he slunk back into the studio. You were overjoyed to see him, but your worshipful exuberance earned you a quick, harsh punishment. That is well and good. Anything he decides to do to you, it is right to be done.

So you thought you might slink away to allow his most unholy form some time alone, some peace undisturbed by your unwieldy and inconvenient self. But he dragged you back, demanded you kneel and provide him company.

You don’t understand. His needs and desires have changed in some way. But you do as he bids. When all else fails you, you are glad you can fall upon that basest instinct. He orders; you obey. With such simple instruction, you pray that you are pleasing to him. You pray (to him) that he finds you acceptable.

So you kneel at his feet, while he is perched upon his throne, and there you remain, until your knees begin to ooze into the metal grating, and your legs go numb and prickly and then ache like fire. You do not lift your head. You do not speak a word. You merely kneel. He, frighteningly, says nothing either.

Your Lord often likes to talk, leaving you scrambling to understand the nuances and intentions in his words. But you find now that you like it less when he doesn’t talk at all. His mood is impenetrable.

Then, as you tremble from the agony of your prolonged position, he finally speaks, “Why do people leave?”

Why do people leave. A question with so many possible answers. But which does he desire? Why does he ask? If only you were more competent to provide the response he requires.

“My Lord,” you breathe instead, and feel helpless, insufficient.

He casts you an inscrutable look from his throne. All you can perceive is that he is, in some way, sad. Melancholic, perhaps?

This must be from his activities outside of the studio. You do not know where he went, or even why he left. You know only that he had been gone a long, long time, more time than has passed for you, which was quite a lot of time.

You know also that he returned once, briefly, carrying the corpse of a very small human. Another similar creature traveled with him, _Joxter_ he said, and though he was the size of a child, he did not speak nor look like one. He had some sort of relationship with your Lord, and even thinking of it now makes you burn. You’re so caught up in spite that you humiliatingly fail to respond to Bendy’s question, and his next words are colder,

“D’you ever think of leavin’, Sammy?”

Leaving - leaving him. The thought alone petrifies you. There is nothing outside of Bendy. No life worth living. All you are is a gift from him, and- “N-no,” you stutter, for though you’re sure at this point that your Lord can read your mind, you must provide him an answer - “I would never - could never -“ A compulsion runs through you like electricity, and you bow until your forehead touches the floor. You quiver. “You are everything to me, Bendy. I would die before leaving you.”

“I know,” Bendy replies. You can’t read his tone. You hope you are pleasing.

He hops off the throne. His hands descend and settle on your head.

You have only a fraction of a second to prepare yourself before he slams your skull onto the floor. Once, twice, thrice. Your mask cracks. Something in your face certainly cracks. When you dizzily raise your head, ink is dribbling down.

“Thank you, my Lord,” you gasp.

“No prob. Ya like that?”

“Yes. I love anything you do to me, Bendy.”

He settles back in his throne, kicking up his feet over the arm rest. His tail flicks thoughtfully. Again he’s silent.

This is odd, very odd. Normally he’s excited by hurting you, and the instigation of any pain often means more will follow. You are here, ready to offer your body for him to mutilate at his leisure, and yet… He looks ponderous.

Ink drips steadily down your face while you wait. Your mind inches back to his earlier question.

“If I may speak…?” You begin.

He waves his hand encouragingly.

You breathe a gentle sigh of gratitude and say, “perhaps people leave because they need a change of pace, my Lord.” This is your best guess as to why Bendy had left the studio, despite the studio being his blessed realm. Prior to his departure he had been…. restless. Unhappy. No matter what you did, it had never been enough to please him - you’d always fallen short. Not even the other toys lurking about in the studio could sate him.

But he shakes his head. “No, that’s not it.”

“I’m so sorry,” you lower your head. Wrong again. You often were, despite how often you try to improve yourself for him.

Bendy rolls onto his stomach and curls up in the seat. His tail wraps around his form. You are afraid to speak, to do any more damage. Still, you offer so softly it barely reaches your own ears, “if there’s anything I can do…”

“No.”

You flinch, and fall silent. You will wait until you can be useful. Until then, you will wait. As long as he needs. And if he never needs you - the thought makes you shake, but - if he never needs you, then you shall wait forever. You will, for him.

He’s looking at you. You can’t see exactly, because you're staring intently at the floorboards, but you can feel his unholy gaze bearing down upon you.

“Someone I cared a whole lot about left,” he finally says. “An’ I don’t know why. There wasn’t any goodbye. No note. Nothin’. I thought he went for a walk. But he didn’t come back. ’N then I waited, an’ night fell, and the canoe was still empty… So I thought, he slept somewhere overnight… just got tired… but then morning passed, ’n the afternoon, and the evening…”

You do not care for anyone Bendy speaks with or befriends, but the vivid thought of anyone leaving him like that… You grit your teeth. “They were in the wrong, doing something so horrible to you-“

“No.” Sharp.

You nearly bite through your lip.

“I knew him” Bendy says. “Real well, Sammy. Whatever reason he had, it was a good one.”

“Yes, my Lord.” You do not trust this friend, but you trust Bendy.

“Just wish I knew what it was,” Bendy adds lowly. And even quieter, “and if he’s okay.”

“You must have cared deeply for him,” you force yourself to speak. It is not insincere. His welfare is your priority, even at the expense of your happiness and comfort.

“Didn’t really think about it too much, t’tell the truth. But he was home for a long time. An’ I wasn’t ready for him to not be home anymore.”

You want to provide yourself as ‘home,’ but you fear Bendy wouldn't receive such an offer well right now. You must be selfless, not selfish. “Perhaps he still will return?” You say, and try to wish for it even though you despise the idea. It’s for Bendy.

“I waited for weeks.” Bendy sits back up. “Went lookin’ for him too.”

“My Lord.”

“Didn’t find nothin’.”

A long silence - long enough for you to berate yourself over your lacking response.

He talks before you are able to summon a more appropriate answer; he sounds sadder than you have ever heard him. “I wasn’t ready to leave Moominvalley.”

“I can go back with you,” you propose, not because you have any desire to leave the studio, but because you will do anything to make him happy again.

Yet this, too, he turns down. “It wouldn't be the same,” he admits, and that stings. You stifle the hurt. “That’s somethin’ you don’t get, Sammy. Sometimes things pass an’ they don’t ever come back.”

No, you don’t truly understand. All you remember is your life with Bendy, and the joy of serving him. There are fragments, little flits floating in your head that suggest another time, another life, but you don’t truly remember enough of them to feel anything but a distant, foggy nostalgia. A vague sense of loss.

Wrapped up in the sensation, you touch your ink-drowned forearms. There… is supposed to be something there, you think. Something carved in. A creation wholly yours.

But that’s silly.

You are Bendy’s. Your body is for his use and amusement. Nothing is your own.

Your fingers fall away from your arms.

“I don’t understand,” you admit. You are beneath him. Incapable of grasping the depth of his emotions. You only ache for him, and what he must be going through.

Bendy continues, “I liked the place so much ‘cause of the people there. All the Snufkins, at first, ‘n then Jox and Happy.”

Such strange names.

“So goin’ back… it wouldn’t ever be the same. Could always hunt still, but…” Bendy scrunches lower on his throne. “I don’t know,” he says.  
It’s a scary thing, hearing him say that. Bendy knows all. He is infinitely powerful and knowledgeable, and you tremble at whatever force has made him not know.

“I think it’s always gonna feel like they should be there, only they ain’t anymore.”

That you think you can relate to. It’s how you felt when Bendy was gone, while you continued your rituals and worship and praise, and yet he never materialized before you. For so so long, that you had begun to believe he’d abandoned the studio entirely. Even the memory of that agony tortures you. You think that what Bendy is speaking of is different, but the two sensations must be similar.

“Was like that with Happy,” Bendy murmurs. “’cept I still had Jox around to make stuff feel kinda normal.”

You worry that Bendy thinks you aren’t listening, and so utter, “yes, my Lord.”

His attention drifts back to you. “Pick me up.”

“Y-yes-“ The rush with which you scramble to your feet has your head spinning and your knees searing. You nearly collapse, but keep yourself up with the force of your will. As soon as you feel steady enough, you reach out, heart pounding, and gently scoop under him. His body droops not unlike a cat, leaving you to hastily cradle him to support his weight. You think he is smaller than usual, perhaps as a reflection of his mood. You hold him close, and he clings onto you like you matter, like you are needed.

He says nothing more, and evidently this is all he needs and wants from you.

You refuse to make him uncomfortable, no matter how uncomfortable it gets holding him, even if your arms ache. At last you feel a fragment of importance and meaning. This is what he wants. You, in any small way, are contributing to his happiness. You smile at the thought.

Perhaps in time, you will be able to do more for him. You'd do anything for him.


	2. Flowers in the Studio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a different POV and tense, but I decided to keep it in the same story because it follows along the same sort of theme.
> 
> It was supposed to be a comedy about Bendy not being able to keep flowers alive in the studio and then it got sad oops

Moominvalley had been like a dream. A long, beautiful mirage with such vibrant, ever-changing seasons. With sun bright enough to blind, or night dark as ink. With clouds, snow, storm, wind. Trees and flowers and colors of every shade and variety imaginable. Stone, mud, grass (not all wood floors over and over). And the _people_ in Moominvalley! At first, their variety had overwhelmed Bendy, but there were Hemulens, Mymbles, Joxters, Snufkins, Moomins - so much more than just humans and ink monsters that were _once_ human. Blood looked vivid and bright, painted across leaves on the forest floor, rather than always dark and mingling with ink. Moominvalley was bursting with a myriad of curious, amazing marvels. Each change of season heralded new activities, new animals, new foliage. And with the Joxter and Happy, Bendy had had the time of his life. Lived every moment to its fullest, like the Joxter.  

When Happy died, much of that was tempered with a hollow, aching sadness burrowed so deep that he carried it everywhere. Only with the Joxter’s encouragement and company did he continue on, smiling still and enjoying their old activities. Then the Joxter left. Vanished, with no word, no explanation, no prior signal or indication that he was going to leave. And then Bendy was alone.

He waited, curled up in the canoe, watching, ever-hopeful for the Joxter’s return. He waited, day in, day out. His hope dwindled. Loneliness sunk deep. Where was his friend? Where was the Joxter? He was the only one Bendy had left here.

Days passed.

Bendy found and mauled a Snufkin, taking out all his anger and fear, but it brought no pleasure. By the end of it, he was staring at the blood soaking the ground, thinking only that he was truly, truly alone. He returned to the nest.

The valley continued to be beautiful. The harmonicas whistled in the wind. The knife wind chimes clacked. No purring voice rose to give life to the nest. Only nature spoke here now. 

It felt final. Like the ending to the last episode, except for some reason the reel kept playing, displaying empty scenery where characters used to occupy. The backdrop was here, as if waiting for the next episode, but it wasn’t coming. Somewhere else in the valley, other stories were continuing. Other characters growing and developing and changing, other losses and victories. But these were utterly unbothered by the cessation of Bendy’s story here.

Spite wanted him to go destroy their stories, to ruin theirs like his had been abruptly ruined. But Bendy knew narrative courses. Anyway, the Joxter probably would have considered it rude. 

Still Bendy hung around in the empty nest for weeks. Maybe the Joxter would still come back. Maybe he’d gotten lost. Maybe he’d found a refuge and wanted to play with the Snufkins for a while. Maybe, maybe maybe - 

Maybe Bendy would never know. But the Joxter wasn’t coming back. 

Tail drooping, Bendy finally returned to the studio. Ink-dark swallowed the sun, devoured the plant life, consumed the peaceful world until Bendy was back in a cramped hallway, with the distant sound of dripping ink and the sense of dozens of miserable shadows trapped here. The studio was familiar, where he belonged, he knew. But for a bit… he had dreamed he belonged somewhere else, and it had felt so real, so wonderful. 

Now, he didn’t know what to do with himself here. He hadn’t been ready to return, not quite yet. 

Sammy found him soon enough, and so Bendy killed him out of pure restlessness several times over until he got bored of it. 

Next he hunted down other residents of the studio, and provided them with comparable treatment. While this was satisfying in the moment, emptiness was quick to return. 

Bendy ended up slumped on his throne, while Sammy pathetically lay prostrate before him. Every movement of Bendy’s had Sammy flinching - he had learned quickly just how capricious his god was as of late. 

“If there is anything, anything at all I may do…” Sammy stuttered out, not for the first time. “Everything of mine is yours, my Lord.”

“This ain’t the kinda thing sex fixes,” Bendy snapped. “You can’t do anything, so ya might as well shaddup.”

Sammy looked so mopey that Bendy considered screwing him anyway just for the hell of it, until Sammy murmured,

“You miss the other place, don’t you?”

Bendy’s tail twitched. His glimmering eyes fixed on Sammy warningly. 

“If I may be so bold as to suggest…. Perhaps it would help to bring - bring a trinket, a memento, from that place-”

“Why would I do that?”

Sammy hesitated, as if he couldn't himself think of why. Then, hesitantly, “it is something humans do to remember people or places…”

“That’s dumb. I remember it just fine.”

“Yes, Bendy.”

Despite dismissing Sammy’s suggestion, Bendy pondered over it longer. The Joxter had kept trophies - knives, packs, harmonicas. The appeal there had been deliciously gruesome and quite different, but maybe a similar act could yield a different result. He did remember Moominvalley and the Joxter and Happy just fine, but… maybe placing a bit of Moominvalley - just some small aspect of it - into the studio to immortalize it would be worthwhile. It didn’t provide closure, or help ailing memory, but it was a sign for all about a chapter in Bendy’s life, a very very important chapter, that had taken place outside of the studio. 

That left the question of what to take. The canoe, the chimes, the harmonicas? All those seemed like fixtures of the nest, things that should stay (the Joxter would need them to mark the spot, should he ever return). But then what to bring?

It was much later when Bendy arrived at a conclusion. 

_Flowers._

What Happy and the Joxter had both decorated themselves with, what had wreathed the entire clearing and marked the seasons.  

Flowers was it. 

Bendy immediately rushed to the book _Moominvalley in November_ and placed a hand to the page. The studio around him warped, and like a coin sinking below the water’s surface, he absorbed into the ink. The sun burned away all the darkness, and greenery unfolded around him like stained paper. 

Soon enough he was in the nest again.

There was an infant hope, quickly extinguished, that maybe the Joxter had returned in Bendy’s absence. Bendy shook off the dismissed hope, and set to work plucking flowers. Some long draping white ones forming the nest canopy. Some berries the Joxter had always liked. A few cattails from the lake, and bright yellow flowers that Happy had braided into crowns on several occasions. 

Arms full of ink-splattered plants, he transported back and began arranging them immediately, using ink to position them upright (or in the case of the dangling white flowers, hanging them from the ceiling to mimic their natural look).

Bendy was thrilled at the touch of color and touch of Moominvalley within his studio, and quickly hunted down Sammy to show off the new decor. 

“It’s wonderful,” Sammy marveled over them, sounding distant. “They seem… nearly familiar…”

“Don’t be silly, Sammy; you’ve never been in Moominvalley.”

Sammy turned his smiling mask to Bendy. “Of course, my Lord.”

Still, Bendy was delighted by his response. He even dragged in other Lost Ones, or other perversions of the cartoon characters. 

“Aren’t they great?” Bendy would ask, patting their trembling heads while they knelt by his will and whimpered. Most nodded frantically. Bendy understood they were too terrified to disagree, but it was pleasurable all the time, showing his flowers off to the studio residents, and having them agree that they made a good addition. 

It was a part of Moominvalley, a part of Happy and the Joxter, living on in the studio. 

… Until Bendy returned to find the flowers browning. Shriveling. He watched them closely, but over time, they only grew more and more desiccated. Soon they were ruined dead fragments of what they had once been. 

This irritated Bendy far more than it should have. He hauled Sammy by throat to the room, “the hell happened to ‘em?” He yelled. “Who did this?”

Quivering with terror, Sammy uttered, “M-my Lord, I-I simply think… they needed water?”

When Bendy released his throat, Sammy explained that flowers required water to survive. They drank it, apparently, like mumriks did. They also needed soil. 

Bendy marched right back to Moominvalley, and hastily snatched up more plants, as well as a bucket of soil dug up from the ground. This time, Sammy demonstrated placing them in bacon soup cans, which had been emptied of their soup and re-filled with soil. 

“You water them periodically,” Sammy demonstrated, tilting another water-filled can and soaking the soil. “Whenever they droop.”

Bendy approached the task with diligence. He was strongly tempted to water the flowers at the slightest sign of any drooping, but Sammy said they could die of water, too. That was also a trait shared with mumriks and humans - Bendy did know that. It was another silly trait of mortal beings, that the things they required could also kill them.

But Bendy listened to Sammy’s advice. He wouldn't overwater. This time, the plants became spindly and sick-looking, turned yellow, and then died. 

Sammy clearly didn’t know as much about plants as he was suggesting. 

Bendy kicked Sammy’s skull in.

“Well?” He prompted, some time later when Sammy had reformed. “I watered ‘em just like you said, Sammy. An’ they still died!”

Sammy was a cringing ball of anxiousness. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, my Lord- I knew how much they meant to you, I swear I never would have said something if I didn’t think it was true-“

“The heck went wrong, then?”

“M-maybe because f-flowers also need s-sun, my Lord…” 

Sun. Sun. Of all his powers over the studio, Bendy could not make a sun. All he could muster was a sodium yellow glow, dim and weak. Nothing like the sun in Moominvalley. 

Still Bendy created dozens of little yellow lights to litter the room, and placed new plants under their diseased glow. 

The same result. 

Same result. 

Same result no matter what he tried.

Each time, Bendy got more frantic, more determined, until…

Until he had no energy left. He stared at the pile of shriveled dead plants. They weren’t going to grow in the studio. Nothing natural could grow and thrive here, not really. Even the people here were pathetic ink-infested perversions of humans. It was easier to accept that, rather than try to fight against it. 

Sammy cringed in a ball nearby, shivering and awaiting a new blow. 

Nothing natural could thrive here.

“I’m glad I couldn’t bring Happy back after all,” Bendy said.

Sammy was too frightened to reply.

Bendy shook his head and turned away from the flowers. Ink bubbled up from the floorboards, devoured every brown leaf and plant until there was no evidence they had existed. They didn’t belong here, anyway. 

“Sammy.” A gloved hand prodded Sammy’s arm; the ink monster (which had now long surpassed a human’s life span) flinched. 

Sammy mumbled something worshipful. 

“Sammy, move yer arms.”

Sammy whined, expecting to be hurt, but Bendy managed to crawl his way into Sammy’s lap one way or another. Trembling fingers, no longer suited to playing the piano, stroked down Bendy’s back by habit. 

"D'ya ever miss bein' human?" Bendy asked. 

"No, my Lord." 

"Hmm." Bendy wondered if it was that he didn't miss it, or that he didn't remember it. 


End file.
